as in whale
something or someone that is unusually large and powerful
mom-and-pop stores just can't compete with these mastodons of retailing
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Recent Examples of mastodon
The frieze, estimated to be about 12,500 years old, depicts massive ice age beasts thought to have once roamed South America, including mastodons and ground sloths the size of a car.
—
Laura Bassett, Condé Nast Traveler, 21 Aug. 2025
Guests can take a boat tour to learn more about the area’s history — which stretches back thousands of years to early Native Americans and mastodons — or stay overnight in the Wakulla Springs Lodge, which dates back to 1937.
—Patrick Connolly, The Orlando Sentinel, 1 Aug. 2025
The landmass used to host multiple forms of mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, enormous armadillos, multiple species of sabercat, huge bison, dire wolves and many more large creatures that formed ancient ecosystems unlike anything on our planet today.
—Riley Black, Smithsonian Magazine, 11 July 2025
Researchers think the wide-open balds were created by grazing animals, first by mastodons and woolly mammoths, and later by deer and elk.
—Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan, Outside Online, 6 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for mastodon
Laura Bassett, Condé Nast Traveler, 21 Aug. 2025
Guests can take a boat tour to learn more about the area’s history — which stretches back thousands of years to early Native Americans and mastodons — or stay overnight in the Wakulla Springs Lodge, which dates back to 1937.
—Patrick Connolly, The Orlando Sentinel, 1 Aug. 2025
The landmass used to host multiple forms of mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, enormous armadillos, multiple species of sabercat, huge bison, dire wolves and many more large creatures that formed ancient ecosystems unlike anything on our planet today.
—Riley Black, Smithsonian Magazine, 11 July 2025
Researchers think the wide-open balds were created by grazing animals, first by mastodons and woolly mammoths, and later by deer and elk.
—Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan, Outside Online, 6 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for mastodon
Recent Examples of Synonyms for mastodon
Noun
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But that is where a team with arguably the most forward-facing executive in the NBA, if not in all of sports, had to be forward facing, with a media session with the same type of clarity as all those times after landing, for lack of better phrasing, a whale.—
Ira Winderman,
Sun Sentinel,
7 Feb. 2026
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The whales are selling up, according to Jefferies analyst Andrew Moss.—
Jim Edwards,
Fortune,
6 Feb. 2026
Noun
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The data can’t foresee recessions or pandemics—or the arrival of a technology that might do to the workforce what an asteroid did to the dinosaurs.—
Josh Tyrangiel,
The Atlantic,
10 Feb. 2026
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People from around the world visit to see dinosaur tracks from 113 million years ago in the bed of the Paluxy River or to enjoy other recreational activities, such as fishing, biking and swimming.—
Lana Ferguson,
Dallas Morning News,
10 Feb. 2026
Noun
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DeepSeek, Alibaba, and other Chinese tech giants ByteDance and Tencent have been granted conditional approvals by Beijing to purchase a certain amount of H200s, Reuters reported last month, citing anonymous sources.—
John Liu,
CNN Money,
11 Feb. 2026
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Tech giants have repeatedly relied on Section 230, a federal law that shields them from liability over content that their users post, as a defense against safety claims.—
CNN.com Wire Service,
Mercury News,
11 Feb. 2026
Noun
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Clues in the snow led to the arrests of two suspects in a business break-in during last weekend’s monster storm in the Charlotte region and rest of the state, Iredell County Sheriff Darren Campbell said in a social media post.—
Joe Marusak,
Charlotte Observer,
7 Feb. 2026
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The 6-8 Mendoza was a monster on Friday, scoring 21 points, grabbing 14 rebounds and blocking six shots.—
John Maffei,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
7 Feb. 2026
Noun
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Unlike many slow-moving urban mammoths, this could be a model for how to integrate local desires with capitalist imperatives to deliver your friendly neighborhood megaproject.—
Justin Davidson,
Curbed,
10 Feb. 2026
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Savvy ancestors As mammoths and elephants were rare in prehistoric England, the discovery highlights the advanced cognitive skills of early humans.—
Mrigakshi Dixit,
Interesting Engineering,
21 Jan. 2026
Noun
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Zimbabwe’s biggest national park also houses large elephant populations and more than 400 bird species.—
Taryn White,
Travel + Leisure,
11 Feb. 2026
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For his latest documentary the German filmmaker behind Grizzly Man and Cave of Forgotten Dreams follows conservation biologist and National Geographic Explorer Steve Boyes on his obsessive quest to find the mythical ghost elephants of Lisima in the highlands of Angola.—
Katie Kilkenny,
HollywoodReporter,
10 Feb. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Mastodon.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mastodon. Accessed 14 Feb. 2026.
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